A senior RUC officer has been accused by a barrister of "howling, shouting, verbally abusing and sneering" at a 35-year-old salesman he was questioning about the death of his girlfriend. A jury of seven men and five women trying the case in Armagh Crown Court of Mr Gary Edward Scullion listened to extracts from police interview tapes in which a detective inspector raised his voice and shouted.
Mr Scullion has pleaded not guilty to murdering a mother of two, Pamela Stevenson, with whom he shared a terraced house at Orangefield Drive in Armagh. The victim was found dead on the kitchen floor on Sunday, October 6th, last year.
Mr Scullion's legal team played the tapes during cross-examination of the police officer by senior defence counsel Mr John McCrudden QC.
The courtroom heard the inspector's raised voice as Mr Scullion repeatedly protested his innocence and pleaded with the officer to check out aspects of what he was telling him. The accused man could be heard distinctly saying: "I didn't do it. I'm telling you the truth, honest".
Comments which the policeman was recorded making to Mr Scullion included: "you're a mess son, a mess"; "you killed her"; "I tell you, you did it"; "who did it then?".
A colleague involved in the interviews, questioned by Mr McCrudden, described the mixture of raised voice and shouting as the "inspector's technique".
Asked if he considered it the proper way to treat Mr Scullion, this officer replied: "My own personal point of view, no, not to that extent".
Mr McCrudden had suggested to the inspector that the police had got the wrong end of the stick. "You were not prepared to give credence to his account, to be fair to him, to give him a chance, or to check up on what he was telling you," said the barrister.
The inspector admitted calling Mr Scullion "pathetic" a couple of times but claimed this was because of how the accused man was coming across. He considered "sneer" was too strong a word.
The inspector expressed the belief that Mr Scullion had been fairly treated. He agreed that at no stage did the defendant refuse to answer any questions. He had been consistent in his denials and consistent that he was leaving Mrs Stevenson, not her leaving him.
He admitted he had "probably raised" his voice during the interview and that a certain amount of pressure had been applied which in hindsight might have been the wrong line of questioning.
Jurors had been told that in the course of 10 interviews Mr Scullion denied strangling Mrs Stevenson with a vacuum cleaner flex. He claimed she had killed herself.